


Savage Appetite

by ishouldwritethatdown



Category: Wolverine (Comics)
Genre: Amnesia, Back to Earth, Diners, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Kouen finally gets his goddamn cheeseburger, On the Run, Post-Canon, Returning Home, Roadtrip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 08:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19720084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishouldwritethatdown/pseuds/ishouldwritethatdown
Summary: Logan and Kouen make their way back to Earth, and Logan is determined to do one thing: show his son exactly what a cheeseburger is.(Post-Savage Wolverine#11)





	Savage Appetite

“It’s blue,” said the kid, with his hands pressed up against the glass, breath frosting the window.

“It sure is,” Logan said, because he wasn’t wrong. The Earth _was_ blue. Just as blue as it was when he left it, he was sure, although he didn’t have an actual memory of this view to compare it to. Never seen the Earth from space – there, he’d learned something about himself already.

Once they got down there, really in amongst it all, he was sure he’d fall back into it. He’d know what he knew, and what he didn’t know, and be able to piece it together from there. He’d find answers, for what happened to land him halfway across the galaxy, for why his memories were trapped behind a haze only cleared by familiarity, for why the phrase _Weapon X_ sent a chill up his spine.

He looked at the kid, eyes wide with wonder. Maybe he’d even figure out that feeling that settled into his chest whenever he looked at him in candid moments, shrouded in the same familiarity as all the other instincts that had come back to him; hiding, and killing, and parsing out lies. Watching Kouen in itself wasn’t familiar, exactly, not like déjà vu. But that _feeling_ …

Like he’d done this before. A man made of razors and hard edges, looking after a child. This time had been different – he’d been the only sapient being with an ounce of compassion for lightyears, and the kid was his damn clone, of course he had to help. But the idea that there were others, on that big blue planet full of people kinder and softer than him not helping these kids was terrifying. Was _maddening_. Who on Earth was responsible for that?

“Let’s land this thing,” he said, because he didn’t want to think about it any more.

Kouen jumped down – heavier than he looked, heavier than he should be – and followed him to the controls without him asking. He instructed him to man the radio, as he had for their entire journey. He’d only had to use it once, when they docked at a station to resupply, and Logan had resisted every urge to take over for him when he stumbled on the words and hum-ha’d; this was his one job, and if he wasn’t allowed to do it, he’d be upset. Which meant he’d be _annoying_ , and if there was one thing he knew on experience that he actually remembered, it was that you didn’t want to tick off somebody with razor-sharp claws at their disposal. The people who’d tried to imprison him had learned that, eventually. Pity it had been much too late to save their lives.

“Unidentified spacecraft, identify. Over,” crackled the radio, once they approached orbit.

“ _You_ identify,” insisted Kouen, gripping the mic at its base. “Over.” Logan gritted his teeth. This was going to be _fun_.

How they managed to avoid getting shot out of orbit, he had no idea. How he managed to get the radio operators on the other end to take on good faith that they were Earthlings, and not whatever unknown aliens had originally owned this ship, he had no idea. But hours later, they’d calculated a trajectory for an ocean-landing and, on the very stern promise that if they deviated, they’d be obliterated, made it. Not before having a hasty and louder-than-he-would’ve-liked conversation about how _regenerative healing_ did not equal _invincible_ and if he didn’t strap into a seat _right that second_ he was going to be in _big trouble, mister_.

When the airlock depressurised, he was hit by a wave of seasalt air. Crisp, fresh wind not filtered through a machine or released steadily into the cabin; real, buffeting wind that carried the smell of fish and algae on it. He looked at Kouen, and saw him take a deep, wondering breath, inhaling a piece in this new world. He met Logan’s eyes, and his face broke into a smile.

And there was that feeling again, the scary one. The one that meant he’d been waiting for it, expecting it, because he knew this rodeo, he’d done it all before.

The chopper sent to pick them up and take them to dry land whirred overhead, and he grabbed hold of the ladder extended to them. Kouen looked sceptical, so he held out his arm to let him step into it so that he was standing on the same rung with one foot in between his. He pulled him close and held him fast as they were winched up and squeezed his shoulder when his breaths came quick and shallow. _You’re safe. I’ve got you._

He hoisted him up first, into the waiting arms of one of the soldiers. When Logan pulled himself in, the door was slammed closed behind him. Kouen stood a wary distance from the uniformed officers, despite the efforts of the first to de-helmet and seem as unintimidating as you reasonably could with a machine gun strapped to your torso. The kid shuffled closer to Logan, and he put an arm around him. _You’re safe. I’ve got you._

“If you can just drop us by the nearest burger joint, we’ll be out of your hair,” he said.

“You’re going to need to come in to questioning, sir,” said one of the soldiers, stiff. They were all uneasy – and, fine, that was probably fair enough. Man and his son drop out of sky in alien spaceship, that raises a few eyebrows. But man and his son examined, found to be rapid-healing, metal-boned mutants? That was a party he didn’t much want to attend. Definitely not the sort of gig you wanted to take your kid to, either.

He wasn’t sure where the word ‘mutant’ had come from; it had risen out of his vocabulary with the arrival of the machine guns sitting across from him. So, when threatened by the military, being a mutant was important. Being ‘other’ was important. Good to know.

In the pilots’ cabin, he heard the radio receiver crackle. “Approaching airfield. Coming in to land, over.”

“Roger.”

He gave Kouen a squeeze on the shoulder and murmured, “That’s our cue. Jump, tuck, roll.”

Human ears full of engine-shudder and helmet, their captors didn’t hear what he said, only saw his lips moving, but they were alert when he lunged for the door, swung it open with the ease of a soldier, and pushed Kouen on the back towards the edge.

Racing tarmac. It wasn’t going to be fun, or pretty. But they didn’t have time to hesitate, when the very beginning of yells were starting in the soldiers’ throats. He leapt from the chopper, tucking his chin and his elbows into his chest and feeling the drop in his stomach in the split second before his shoulder struck tarmac and he rolled, rolled, rolled.

Skin stinging all over, probably bleeding, bones most likely a little bit dislocated in places, he staggered to his feet just as Kouen bounced to his. Damn kids, made of rubber even without a healing factor.

There was already a 4x4 hurtling towards them, but their premature landing had put them close to the perimeter, and he ran, trusting that the boy would follow. He barely felt his claws come out in amongst all the other pain his body was complaining of, but the fence sure felt it, with a man-sized hole sliced out of the chain-link. He ushered Kouen through and followed him out, and they ran into green.

The scent of pine and the leavings-behind of fauna overwhelmed the smell of sweat and blood that was reeking off them both for a moment, and then they were part of the forest, just another trail of skittish prey.

Kouen tripped on a tree root, unused to the terrain, and Logan didn’t waste any time scooping him into his arms – too heavy, far too heavy for a boy his size – and running on. The pain was fading as he healed, leaving behind only the ache of hunger in his stomach, and he could live with that. Starving to death just wasn’t his scene.

Even when the sun sank in the sky and he slowed to a walk, they kept moving. Kouen walked on his own feet again, taking in his surroundings with the same wonder. The sparkle in his eyes didn’t fade when they left the forest and emerged on an open stretch of highway. Cars made him flinch, the first couple of times. And then he settled in, just like he belonged here. Because he did. Logan was going to make sure of it.

The truck stop was occupied by the usual types, when they got there, streaks of captivating orange and pink across the sky. If they got odd looks for arriving on foot, Logan didn’t catch them, or particularly care to. There was one thing on his mind; he was going to show his boy what a cheeseburger was. The fact that he didn’t have any money, well that hadn’t occurred to him until right that moment.

“I’ll pay for it,” said a trucker, one of the ones that might’ve given them an odd look. “You boys seem like you could use a little help. Order what you like, I’ll cover it. And if you want a ride heading east, come find me once you’re done.”

He’d have to pick her brain about that act of charity later. Right now, he was talking Kouen out of ordering the entire menu. The server rolled her eyes as if to say, _Kids,_ and he silently agreed.

They sat by the window, and Logan watched him alternately take bites of his double cheeseburger and slurps of his strawberry milkshake. Logan picked at fries, already having polished off his burger, and sat back to enjoy the show. “Enjoying that, champ?”

He nodded vigorously and said around his mouthful, “Wamma hab this e’rry day.”

One safe little boy, contentedly chowing down on a free meal, with his future bright and full of wonder. The adamantium on his bones, weighing him down and straining him in place, that could wait. The killer reflexes, and the bad attitude, they could wait, too. Right now, he was happy.

He caught sight of a phone behind the counter of the diner, and asked if he might be allowed to use it, flicking frequent glances back to his boy, who was now adding fries into the rotation, as he neared the end of his shake. His fingers hovered over the number buttons of the phone. _Who do I call?_ There must be family, somewhere. Some number.

He put his hand to the keypad and let muscle memory do the rest. He couldn’t have recited it, but he held his breath as it dialled, sure that he was calling the closest thing he had to home. Other than the one sitting in this diner, he supposed.

_Click._ “Hello?”

His voicebox failed him at the sound of the voice. _Familiar._ “Hi,” he said, after a struggling moment. “It’s, uh, me.”

“Who?”

“Logan,” he said. “It’s Logan.”

“Holy shit,” said home. “Where are you?”


End file.
